BunsenLabs Lithium will stay with X

The developer team have been discussing the eventual demise of X and move to Wayland, and have decided that for the upcoming BunsenLabs "Lithium" release the best path will be to continue using the current X+openbox+compton for our desktop.

Debian can be expected to support this framework for some time to come, certainly for the lifetime of the "Buster" release, on which "Lithium" will be based.

Meanwhile, we will continue to explore the possibilities for future BunsenLabs desktops. Please watch the "Development & Suggestions" forum section for further updates.

Re: BunsenLabs Lithium will stay with X

johnraff wrote:

^Good idea.

Of course, feedback from users, either after or even before we put out any BL builds, will be very useful.

True, even with Wayland still quite rough around the edges and not really ready for prime time test builds can be useful in finding bugs and be helpful in generating bug reports to the Wayland developers as well as providing info to the BL team.

Re: BunsenLabs Lithium will stay with X

^Debian does not default to any window managing system - that's up to the individual desktops to decide. I'm pretty sure that XFCE, for example, won't be moving to Wayland all that soon, but Gnome already has, and KDE following (according to a quick bit of websearching).

Re: BunsenLabs Lithium will stay with X

Can confirm that GNOME on sid/testing defaults to Wayland and is surprisingly smooth, but not quite there still depending on hardware (my impression of it, at least). KDE Plasma 5.13 on sid/testing doesn't even have a Wayland session available from the login options, so maybe they'll hold off on full-Wayland a while longer.

Re: BunsenLabs Lithium will stay with X

johnraff wrote:

^Debian does not default to any window managing system - that's up to the individual desktops to decide. I'm pretty sure that XFCE, for example, won't be moving to Wayland all that soon, but Gnome already has, and KDE following (according to a quick bit of websearching).

so the DE decides whether it uses Xorg or Wayland, and debian (already, fully) supports both options?

Re: BunsenLabs Lithium will stay with X

Debian supports X, of course, and Wayland to whatever extent the Wayland developers and maintainers have reached. But if Debian chose a Wayland-dependent desktop by default it would indicate some confidence I suppose.

Re: BunsenLabs Lithium will stay with X

Gnome looks like being the only DE to use Wayland in Buster.

Anyway, Debian's "default desktop" only means which one the Debian Installer chooses. In the netinstall case, it's just the top choice in the list of DEs that appears. Do all that many people install the default Debian desktop anyway? I tend to think not.

I think X will continue to be well supported as long as there is a significant number of apps and users that want it. (This is Big D's advantage over the "bleeding edge" distros.) For Buster certainly, Bullseye and after that too IMO.

For BunsenLabs it won't be a question of being forced to move to Wayland, but when we feel it's the right time.

Re: BunsenLabs Lithium will stay with X

Re: BunsenLabs Lithium will stay with X

johnraff wrote:

Anyway, Debian's "default desktop" only means which one the Debian Installer chooses. In the netinstall case, it's just the top choice in the list of DEs that appears. Do all that many people install the default Debian desktop anyway? I tend to think not.

That'd be because the default is the worst one in the list, Gnome is truly horrid in the current incarnation. Users know it and use the option to pick another.

Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed...If there's an obscure or silly way to break it, but you don't know what.. Just ask me

Re: BunsenLabs Lithium will stay with X

Bearded_Blunder wrote:

johnraff wrote:

Anyway, Debian's "default desktop" only means which one the Debian Installer chooses. In the netinstall case, it's just the top choice in the list of DEs that appears. Do all that many people install the default Debian desktop anyway? I tend to think not.

That'd be because the default is the worst one in the list, Gnome is truly horrid in the current incarnation. Users know it and use the option to pick another.

That is why I myself choose no desktop when it comes to Debian netinstalls. I also find Gnome to be rather ugly and KDE standard install to be a little better. Openbox has been my go to for ages now.

Re: BunsenLabs Lithium will stay with X

johnraff wrote:

^Debian does not default to any window managing system - that's up to the individual desktops to decide. I'm pretty sure that XFCE, for example, won't be moving to Wayland all that soon, but Gnome already has, and KDE following (according to a quick bit of websearching).

Enlightenment will run on Wayland (E22 or higher) - but Wayland support has to be compiled in. Not sure what's in the Debian repos these days, but this 3rd party repo provides Enlightenment with Wayland support for the adventurous. Tried it a while back, bit of a resource hog; but it didn't crash.

Any of the other window managers for Wayland in the repos? Weston is there, of course, is sway?